Random political stuff - old news, or not news

[briantrumpet]

That looks like a figure from a 2018/19 survey judging by yhe reference, so well out of date.

This list puts it at 5%, from Yougov in July 2025.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism_by_country

 

[briantrumpet]

Trigger warning for @PurplePenguin

Dan Neidle making the case that 'average workers' have not paid their fair share of the higher tax burden in the UK.

https://skywriter.blue/@danneidle.bsky.social/3mnkcy72puk2n

UK tax has gone up significantly over the last 25 years But the tax paid by the average UK worker has not. This apparent miracle was achieved by taxing “other people”: higher earners, capital, property, banks, etc The strategy has run out of road.

 

[PurplePenguin]

Trigger warning for @PurplePenguin

Dan Neidle making the case that 'average workers' have not paid their fair share of the higher tax burden in the UK.

https://skywriter.blue/@danneidle.bsky.social/3mnkcy72puk2n



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Can you remind me what your new latin word is - the one that means you are quoting an expert talking about another subject?

 

[briantrumpet]

Can you remind me what your new latin word is - the one that means you are quoting an expert talking about another subject?

At least I warned you.

argumentum ad verecundiam

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

 

[Psamathe]

I was surprised by the vegetarian- 4% seems very low.

I'd always seen 5% but that's maybe rounding/polling timing. But I regard it as quite high. 1 in 20 people; think of walking down the street and it's 1 in 20, cycle peloton/chain gang ...

 

[briantrumpet]

It's really hard to have rational debate when perceptions are so skewed, and so far away from reality. I'm not sure how you deal with this, especially when those wanting to foment division are only to happy to maintain these faulty perceptions.

(The poster here is anything but an unbiased commentator — they are very left wing — but I'm assuming that these stats are reasonably accurate.)

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I've not found these exact figures, but Gemini says similar from a Yougov poll in April 2022. Amusingly, the figures were quoted approvingly by GB News and the Daily Mail, but I'd have thought it undermines their agenda of suggesting that these minorities are the scary monsters they like to make them out to be.

 

[Psamathe]

Trigger warning for @PurplePenguin

Dan Neidle making the case that 'average workers' have not paid their fair share of the higher tax burden in the UK.

https://skywriter.blue/@danneidle.bsky.social/3mnkcy72puk2n

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Trouble is that many of those "other people" indirectly comes back to lower income. eg tax banks and their fees and interest rates increase to ensure their profits keep growing and those higher interest rates are paind by lower income groups. Increase property based taxes eg Council tax and that again increases take from lower income groups.

And the real indicator is the wealth inequality in the UK and how it is changing. From LSE in 2024 "Despite being an increasingly wealthy country, Britain’s wealth is ever more concentrated in fewer (private) hands, at the expense of millions of people and the public realm more generally." https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/inequalities/2024/10/29/the-uks-wealth-gap-has-grown-by-50-in-eight-years/.

 

[BoldonLad]

Trigger warning for @PurplePenguin

Dan Neidle making the case that 'average workers' have not paid their fair share of the higher tax burden in the UK.

https://skywriter.blue/@danneidle.bsky.social/3mnkcy72puk2n



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Is the Tax, Income Tax and NI, or, all taxes (ie including VAT, and other indirect taxation)

 

[briantrumpet]

Ha!

 

[briantrumpet]

Will no-one think of Richard Murphy (he of Magic Money Tree fame/infamy), who, I guess, is one of the few people in the world who thinks and has to take his brain with him on holiday? Oh woe is he. No wonder he always looks miserable.

 

[PurplePenguin]

Trouble is that many of those "other people" indirectly comes back to lower income. eg tax banks and their fees and interest rates increase to ensure their profits keep growing and those higher interest rates are paind by lower income groups. Increase property based taxes eg Council tax and that again increases take from lower income groups.

And the real indicator is the wealth inequality in the UK and how it is changing. From LSE in 2024 "Despite being an increasingly wealthy country, Britain’s wealth is ever more concentrated in fewer (private) hands, at the expense of millions of people and the public realm more generally." https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/inequalities/2024/10/29/the-uks-wealth-gap-has-grown-by-50-in-eight-years/.

The article glosses over the point in your first paragraph and assumes that all median workers are not paying any other taxes, so they must be being paid by the wealthy.

The main graph deserves to go on the bad graph thread.

But I was warned.

 

[briantrumpet]

If you enjoy historical 'banter' and are on Bluesky, this thread is splendid: someone suggesting that by D-Day the Nazis had already been defeated.

https://bsky.app/profile/emily.gorcen.ski/post/3mnmi2n6l4c2y

 

[briantrumpet]

The article glosses over the point in your first paragraph and assumes that all median workers are not paying any other taxes, so they must be being paid by the wealthy.

The main graph deserves to go on the bad graph thread.

But I was warned.

I'm not sure if there's a Latin expression for 'trolling by proxy', but I think I might be guilty.

 

[briantrumpet]

This is quite the question from someone who is paid a lot of money by the Telegraph to write every week about her 'lived experience' as a middle-class right-winger.